The Music of the Elizabethan Choirboy Plays is a subject on which nothing is to be found in the usual handbooks about music, nor yet in the histories of literature and the drama. It has long been known of course that throughout the early part of Elizabeth's reign plays were frequently performed at Court (and elsewhere) by the Children or choristers of various Chapels and Cathedrals. The names of these Chapels and those of the Masters of Children who presented Plays, and (sometimes) the name of the play and the amounts paid for it, are to be found in the “Accounts of the Revels,” and the “Acts of the Privy Council.” And, of course, it has been surmised that music must have occupied a prominent place in these plays; for the primary duty of a chorister is to sing, and naturally the different Masters of the Children who were responsible for producing their plays, would make opportunity for the display of their skill in music. This is proved by the text of the surviving specimens of plays of this kind. But no one has hitherto troubled to hunt up the music written for them. Now however that the great importance of the choirboy plays in the history of the English drama is recognised, thanks chiefly to the researches of Professor Wallace, it evidently becomes a matter of real interest to trace and collect what we can of the music which formed an essential part of them. And if when we have found and collected the undoubted specimens we can detect anything like a style common to them; if, in short, we can find traces of a school of stage song, it is plain that we have hit upon an important episode in the history of English dramatic music, and one that is well worth inquiring into. Incidentally we shall find ourselves able to throw light on some points of interest to students of literature, and provide some illustrations to Shakespeare; for there are allusions in “A Midsummer Night's Dream,” and especially in the burlesque Court play of “Pyramus and Thisbe,” which cannot, I think, be properly appreciated unless their relation to the choirboy plays is understood.